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US sends Uruguay 6 men from Guantanamo prison

December 7, 2014

Six prisoners from Guantanamo Bay have been transferred to Uruguay, the US government said Sunday, announcing a resettlement deal that had been delayed for months by security concerns in the Pentagon and political considerations in the South American country. The six are the first prisoners transferred to South America from the US base in Cuba, part of a flurry of recent releases amid a renewed push by President Barack Obama to close the prison. Uruguayan President Jose Mujica agreed to accept the six men – four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian – as a humanitarian gesture

and said they would be given help getting established in a country with a small Muslim population. All six were detained as suspected militants with ties to al-Qaeda in 2002 but were never charged. They have been cleared for release since at least 2010 but they could not be sent home and have languished as the US struggled to find countries willing to accept them.